Rihanna piles on the Steph Curry shade

After the Cavaliers topped the 73-win Warriors in Game 7 of the NBA Finals Sunday night, the “Work” singer took aim at two-time MVP Steph Curry on Instagram.

“‘Ballin bigger than LeBron’ they said,” Rihanna wrote alongside a screen shot of Curry looking annoyed from the court.

While the 28-year-old songstress flooded social media throughout the night, she showered her “bae” James with plenty of love after he hoisted the trophies for the NBA championship and Finals MVP.

Rihanna pledged her allegiance to Cleveland’s favorite son long before the Cavs took on Golden State.

After the conference finals tipped off, in which the Cavs bested Drake’s beloved Toronto Raptors, the Barbados-born beauty posed in a fiery red bikini after writing James’ number in sunscreen on her taut tummy.

Rihanna & Drake: no title

E! sent out an exclusive this morning about what’s going on between Rihanna and Drake that isn’t so much of an “exclusive” as it is an “obvious”. The title of the report was Here’s Why Rihanna and Drake Haven’t Made Their Relationship Official, which, don’t we know this already? According to E! sources:

As you may have guessed, it's Rihanna who's pumping the brakes when it comes to titles. "Rihanna and Drake are hanging out a bit more lately. Rihanna loves Drake, but is still not ready to put a title on them," a source tells E! News exclusively.

The insider continues, "Drake would make her his girlfriend in a second if he could. It's more on Rihanna, though. They both care about each other and are having a good time spending time with each other. Drake has expressed to Rihanna that he only wants to date her and only her, but she wants to take day by day this time around."

Regardless, the source adds that, "Things are great though and their connection is really strong. Things are progressing nicely."

It has never been a secret that these two have always been on Rihanna time. He writes songs about living on Rihanna time! Even on social media it’s evident that Drake operates on Rihanna time. Here’s what he Instagrammed after she showed up for him at OVO Fest in Toronto this weekend:

Rihanna launches MaRihanna, her own brand of Marijuana.

Rihanna’s very own branded marijuana line, MaRihanna, will be going on sale in Colorado the first quarter of 2016.

The line includes many different types of marijuana flower, including flavors like Karibbean Kush, Haitian Haze and Jamaican High Grade, as well as edibles and concentrates.

“MaRihanna by Rihanna is truly the first mainstream cannabis brand in the world and proud to be a pioneer,” Rihanna said, while speaking at the Cannabis Cup in Negril, Jamaica. “Marihanna is blazing a trail for the industry.”

Rihanna is no stranger to marijuana but she is new to the marijuana business. A longtime weed smoker, Rihanna has never been ashamed to let the world know how much she love the herb, especially the Jamaican ganja.

MaRihanna will be available in Alaska, Oregon, Washington and Colorado pretty soon, and to the rest of the world as marijuana laws get more relaxed.

“All I see is Palestine”: How I went to cover a Rihanna concert and caused a political firestorm

(Credit: Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)

 

By the time Rihanna showed up, I was annoyed, tired and hormonal. She was more than two hours late for her concert at Tel Aviv’s vast Yarkon Park, where I wandered among tens of thousands of young Israelis, not knowing a soul.

But why would I? I’d only just come to Israel in a desperate Hail Mary move, to continue IVF in a country known for its high success rates. Being in my 40s, I wasn’t a particular fan of RiRi (as I later learned was her nickname), but volunteered to cover the concert for a local English-language newspaper I hoped would hire me, at least until I fell pregnant and returned to New York.

Her performance was short but unremarkable. I jotted down some notes about her outfits and dance moves, and a few hours later went back to our temporary digs to write the story, a typical man-on-the-street article that recapped the night’s events and interspersed adoring quotes from fans in the audience whom I’d interviewed while waiting for her to take the stage.

The next morning when I checked online to make sure the piece had been posted, I got a sick feeling when I read the headline: “Rihanna: ‘All I see Is Palestine,’” was the title, using a line in the story where I’d mentioned how the artist had changed up the chorus to one of her songs to include some local flavor.

When I’d scrawled the line down the night before – as she sang the chorus to “Pour It Up,” All I see/is dollar signs – I’d thought the Palestine mention was a way to show sympathy for the underdog in the region.

I’d been a journalist for two decades, but hadn’t covered politics in a long time.

I had no clue I had just stepped into a Mideast war.

No – not the actual war between Israel and Palestine, where real people lose their lives – but the media war whose battles are fought between various groups hoping to win the news cycle. Jewish publications and media watchdogs accused me and my paper of being so left-wing that we’d fabricated the story, which was quickly going viral around the world.

I watched uneasily as the news was regurgitated in Spanish, French and Arabic, until someone on Twitter posted a video that showed Rihanna singing her song. As originally written. With no mention of Palestine. I had misheard it. I had made a major error. My newspaper retracted it. But it was too late. The pro-Israel camp was gloriously gleeful to show a bias on the part of my paper. The mainstream media did what it always did when celebrity and scandal were involved, reporting, rereporting on what the Washington Post called “The Rihanna Israel-Palestine Controversy That Never Happened,” churning me up in the teeth of its machine and spitting me out, crushed.

That’s how it felt, anyway. Over that long weekend, I cried for three days straight as former colleagues and Twitter strangers taunted me on social media. Maybe it was the hormones, maybe it was watching my career – the one thing I was counting on distracting me while doing IVF in a foreign country – go up in flames. Or maybe it was simply the shame of public humiliation, swiftly increasing like the national deficit tally at Times Square. Another article. Another tweet. Another Facebook mention. I couldn’t even defend myself; I was hoping to hold onto a job.

But that was not to happen. Waiting for the phone to ring with news of my fate, I wandered around our rental apartment rambling like a lunatic. How could I have been so dumb? Why did I make such a terrible error? Why didn’t I check with anyone? As I read what people were saying about me online, I didn’t just feel like a bad journalist: I felt like an abominable human being. A few other reporters called in to regale me with tales of their appalling media blunders, but they were pre-Twitter, so I was hardly consoled.

Rihanna

Rihanna is the rare rhythm and blues (R&B) diva to emerge from the Caribbean world. Though she had made two previous albums, the Barbadian singer debuted a glamorous new look in the spring of 2007 as her latest single, "Umbrella," began to climb the charts. By late summer "Umbrella" was on the verge of becoming the most successful single of the entire year. Craig McLean, a writer for the Daily Telegraph, called it "a brilliant pop song, propulsive and sinuous…. Already it is feeling like a defining song of 2007."

Born on February 20, 1988, as Robyn Rihanna Fenty, Rihanna grew up in Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados. Her father, Ronald, was a native of the island, and her mother, Monica, was originally from Guyana, a nation on the northeastern coastline of South America. Along with two younger brothers, Rihanna saw her parents' marriage suffer because of the crack-cocaine addition her father developed. "I knew that my mom and dad would argue when there was foil paper with an ashtray," Rihanna recalled in an interview with Grant Rollings for the Sun, a British tabloid. "He would just go into the bathroom all the time. I didn't know what it was."

Monica struggled to support her family by work in the financial-services industry, but Rihanna was fortunate to attend one of the top schools in Barbados, the Combermere School, founded in 1695. She loved to sing at an early age and formed a teen group, called Contrast, with some friends. In 2004, the year she turned sixteen, she won the title of Miss Combermere, though she had been a self-confessed tomboy who cared little about makeup or clothes until that point. Her break into show business came when producer/songwriter Evan Rogers came to Barbados for a vacation with his wife; the mother of a friend of Rihanna's knew Rogers's wife from their school days together, and the mother arranged an introduction. Rogers and his business partner, Carl Sturken, were responsible for making stars out of Kelly Clarkson, Christina Aguilera, N'Sync, and several other top pop acts. Rihanna sang for Evans one of her favorite songs, Mariah Carey's "Hero," followed by the Destiny's Child's track "Emotions." He was impressed enough to sign her to his company, Syndicated Rhythm Productions (SRP), and arrange for her to come to New York City to cut a demo record. Rogers and his wife assured Monica Fenty that Rihanna would stay at their home and would be watched over as if she was their own daughter.

The next stop on Rihanna's path to stardom came after SRP contacted Jay-Z, the rapper turned mogul who cofounded Roc-A-Feller Records and who had recently become president and chief executive officer of Def Jam Records. Rihanna was invited to audition in person for Jay-Z in his office, "and that's when I really got nervous," she told Sylvia Patterson in the London Observer. "I was like: ‘Oh God, he's right there, I can't look, I can't look, I can't look!’ I remember being extremely quiet. I was very shy. I was cold the entire time. I had butterflies." The tryout was a success, however, and she was signed to Def Jam, which released her debut album, Music of the Sun, in August of 2005. Capitalizing on her West Indian roots, the label positioned the teen as a fresh new voice that merged rap and Caribbean rhythms, which were showcased in the first single released from the album, "Pon de Replay," a dancehall reggae that peaked at number two on the U.S. and British charts.

Subsequent singles from Music of the Sun were less successful, but Rihanna's enticing good looks—statuesque and with green eyes—helped her land lucrative endorsement contracts with Nike, Clinique, and J. C. Penney that opened the door to unique cross-marketing deals. In April of 2006 her second album, A Girl Like Me, was released, and its first single, "SOS," reached number one on Billboard's Hot 100 chart thanks to a tie-in with Nike. Another release further blurred the line between art and commerce: "Just Be Happy," a song written for her by African-American/Chinese-American rapper Ne-Yo, was available only on her Web site as a part of a special promotional campaign with Clinique and its fragrance, Happy.

Both Ne-Yo and Jay-Z appeared on Rihanna's third album, Good Girl Gone Bad, which was released in June of 2007. Its first single was "Umbrella" and had already caused a stir that spring for marking the debut of a new, more grown-up look for the singer. The song wound up spending ten weeks at the number-one spot on the British charts, the longest run for a female artist there since Whitney Houston more than a decade earlier. It also reached number one on the U.S. and European charts, it won MTV's Monster Single of the Year Video honors in September, and its lavishly produced video won Video of the Year at the same ceremony. For part of it, a nude Rihanna was coated in silver paint and then filmed inside a special black box. "The body paint was really oily," she told Elizabeth Sanchez in Men's Fitness about the experience. "I couldn't wait to get it off my face. That was the worst part about it—getting it off. I was in the shower for two and a half hours!… Days after, I still had some in my hair, ears, even my belly button."

Good Girl Gone Bad sold well and secured Rihanna's place as a new R&B/pop powerhouse. "The title of the album represents my liberation," she told Sanchez. "Being able to break out of the innocent image I was forced into. Now I'm just being me." World-famous before she was twenty years old, the singer has been romantically linked to musicians Omarion, Chris Brown, and Justin Timberlake, along with actors Shia LaBeouf and Josh Hartnett. She lives in Los Angeles, and she admitted to Patterson that fame had its drawbacks. "With success has come a lotta great stuff, but there's cons, too," she reflected. "Who to trust is a huge one. I always have to keep my guard up. A lot. I'm dealing with fake people. All the time. So I just keep my guard up."

At a Glance …

Born Robyn Rihanna Fenty on February 20, 1988, in Bridgetown, St. Michael's Parish, Barbados; daughter of Ronald and Monica Fenty.

Career: Signed to Syndicated Rhythm Productions, c. 2004; signed with Def Jam Records; made television acting debut in Las Vegas, 2005; has endorsement deals with Nike, J. C. Penney, Clinique, and CoverGirl.

Awards: Monster Single of the Year and Video of the Year, MTV Music Video Awards, both 2007, for "Umbrella."

Addresses: Agent—Glenn Gulino, William Morris Agency, 1325 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019.

Selected discography

Albums

Music of the Sun, Def Jam, 2005.

A Girl Like Me, Def Jam, 2006.

Good Girl Gone Bad, Def Jam, 2007.

Singles

"Pon de Replay," 2005.

"SOS," 2006.

"Unfaithful," 2006.

"Umbrella," 2007.

"Don't Stop the Music," 2007.

Sources

Periodicals

Daily Telegraph (London, England), May 31, 2007.

Men's Fitness, August 2007.

New York Times, June 4, 2007.

Observer (London, England), August 26, 2007.

Sun (London, England), June 15, 2007.

Times (London, England), January 6, 2007.

Rihanna Barbadian singer

Rihanna, byname of Robyn Rihanna Fenty   (born February 20, 1988, St. Michael parish, Barbados), Barbadian pop and rhythm-and-blues (R&B) singer who became a worldwide star in the early 21st century, known for her distinctive and versatile voice and for her fashionable appearance.

Fenty grew up in Barbados with a Barbadian father and a Guyanese mother. As a child, she listened to Caribbean music, such as reggae, as well as American hip-hop and R&B. She especially enjoyed singing and won a high-school talent show with a rendition of a Mariah Carey song. About the same time, she started a girl group with two friends, and in 2004 she attracted the attention of Evan Rogers, an American record producer. He helped Fenty record a demo that led to an audition with the rapper Jay-Z, who at the time headed the Def Jam record label, and he soon signed the budding vocalist. For her professional career, she adopted her middle name, Rihanna.

With the effervescent dancehall-inflected single “Pon de Replay” (2005), Rihanna immediately captured an international audience. The song’s success buoyed sales for her debut full-length recording, Music of the Sun (2005), on which conventional R&B ballads shared space with Caribbean-flavoured dance-pop that showcased her melodious Barbadian lilt. Rihanna soon followed with the album A Girl like Me(2006), featuring the up-tempo club-oriented “S.O.S.” The song, which was built around a sample of Soft Cell’s 1981 new-wave hit “Tainted Love,” became Rihanna’s first to top the Billboard singles chart.

For Good Girl Gone Bad (2007), Rihanna sought to transform her youthful image. With the assistance of such high-profile collaborators as Timbaland and Justin Timberlake, she abandoned the tropical rhythms that had adorned her first two albums and recorded a collection of sleek R&B that presented her as a fiercely independent and rebellious woman. (She also unveiled a spiky asymmetrical hairstyle.) The gambit paid off, as the album sold several million copies worldwide, and its anthemic lead single, “Umbrella,” featuring an introductory rap from Jay-Z, became one of the year’s biggest hits and earned Rihanna a Grammy Award.

In early 2009 Rihanna was beaten by her boyfriend, fellow R&B star Chris Brown, in an incident that was widely covered by tabloid news and gossip blogs. Following their separation, he was convicted of assault. The album that followed later that year, Rated R, much of which she cowrote, was marked by icily stark production and brooding lyrics that touched on revenge. Although her sales declined somewhat, she scored another major hit with “Rude Boy.” Rihanna returned to less-portentous fare on the dance-friendly Loud (2010). In early 2011 the album’s sexually provocative single “S&M” became her 10th number one Billboard hit—which made her, at age 23, the youngest artist ever to reach that milestone. Included in the total were prominent collaborations with hip-hop artists T.I. and Eminem that appeared on albums of theirs; many felt her vocals on the latter’s “Love the Way You Lie” (2010) lent resonance to the song’s depiction of an abusive relationship.

Rihanna maintained a steely and seductive persona on the albums Talk That Talk (2011), which produced the infectious international hit “We Found Love,” and Unapologetic (2012), which was anchored by the starry-eyed “Diamonds.” The latter release also controversially featured a duet with Brown, with whom she rekindled her relationship for a brief time. In addition to her musical career, Rihanna acted in the movies Battleship (2012) and This Is the End (2013). She also voiced one of the main characters in the animated adventure Home (2015).

Rihanna and a video that should turn all mothers' stomachs: Concerned parent SARAH VINE on the star's latest song that glorifies murder, torture, drug-taking, guns and racial stereotyping

When I first watched Rihanna’s repulsive new video for her repulsive single, B***h Better Have My Money, it had only

had a couple of million views. It was last Wednesday, in fact, shortly after Nick Grimshaw had mentioned it on his Radio 1 Breakfast Show.

Even Grimshaw seemed a little bit shocked — and he’s not exactly a prude. It had made him feel ‘proper’ sick, he said. Hmm, I thought to myself. Better check this one out.

Not out of some desperate, sad-sack desire to keep up with the young, you understand. But as the mother of a 12-year-old girl, I need to know about these things.

Extreme violence: Rihanna appears covered in the blood of her hapless victims in her new music video, 'B**** Better Have My Money'

Glorified: Rihanna waves a gun in the background while her victim lies naked, bound and gagged in the foreground, in the video that is freely available for the legions of 12-year-old girls who support her

What was it General Monty said? ‘Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.’ Never were truer words spoken.

And since motherhood these days seems to involve fighting a losing battle against the endless stream of filthy, violent and downright misogynistic images being rained down on children’s heads from all variety of different media, I make it my mission to know about these things. Even at the detriment of what remains of my sanity.

So after I’d finished the school run, I made myself a cup of strong coffee and logged on to Vevo — the free-to-view, uncensored music video streaming channel used by most pop artists — to watch it.

‘superstar’ such as Rihanna); but it didn’t take me long to realise it was going to get a lot more.

As I watched, I actually felt my pulse quicken in anger.

By the time it had finished, I wondered whether I ought not to report her to the police. Charges: pornography, incitement to violence, racial hatred.

Deep breath now: I shall try to describe it without completely ruining your Monday morning.

A rich, blonde, white woman with expensive hair and even more expensive breast implants is putting the finishing touches to her toilette.

On the hunt: Rihanna, sporting a dark, berry lipstick - is seen looking furious as she drives over to the blonde, white woman's luxurious apartment

Unsuspecting: The video begins - after a foreboding shot on bloody legs popping out of a wooden chest - with a pretty blonde woman getting ready and leaving her apartment

Kiss goodbye: The woman - soon to become Rihanna's unsuspecting victim - dons a chic, white suit and picks up her Pomeranian before heading into the elevator

She strolls through her beautiful apartment, scoops up her Pomeranian pooch, kisses her husband goodbye and steps into the lift.

As the doors close, we see Rihanna, styled like some sort of voodoo fashion victim in black lipstick and hallucinogenic eye make-up, pouting away ominously next to her in possession of a large trunk.

Racial stereotyping: Rihanna, styled like some sort of voodoo fashion victim in black lipstick and hallucinogenic eye make-up, pouts ominously next to her rich, white victim

And so it begins: However, as soon as the doors close Rihanna's single begins playing and she is next seen holding the pup while the mystery woman is nowhere to be seen

The doors open again, and the blonde is gone: beaten up, one assumes, and put inside the trunk. Rihanna is holding the dog.

From then on in, it’s like Grand Theft Auto, but without the gentle romance or subtlety.

Rihanna and her two female sidekicks (one a glacial blonde, the other held together mostly by studs and chains) humiliate and torture the white woman in a variety of sick-making ways.

 This video contains, in no particular order, extreme violence, torture, drug-taking, guns, negative racial stereotyping (towards both black and white), sexual exploitation and murder. Actually, sorry: not just contains, but also glorifies and justifies.

She is, of course, immediately stripped naked, then trussed up in the foetal position in the back of their getaway car. 

Then she is dragged to a disused warehouse, where her costly hair-do swings upside down as she is strung up by her Louboutins from the ceiling.

Rihanna, meanwhile, affects to smoke marijuana, gesticulates incomprehensibly as though she were some genuine gangster (and not just a spoilt little rich popstar), blethering on in her dreary monotone about being owed some money by the ‘b***h’ of the title, who later, it transpires, is the wife of her accountant (the banality of her grievance being entirely lost on her: surely a stiff lawyer’s letter would have sufficed).

The gang move on to what looks like some kind of oil rig, where they paint lipstick on their (still naked) victim’s gag, sunbathe in a variety of impractical fur bikinis, wave guns around and generally loll about the place with their legs wide open.

(In fact, such is the frequency at which we get to view Rihanna’s gusset, I’m actually starting to wonder whether she might not have some kind of medical condition which prevents her from keeping her legs — as well as her stupid trap — shut.)

Rihanna debuts controversial new music video with Tidal

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Treasure chest: Rihanna drags the large trunk, presumably now containing the beaten body of the woman, out of the luxury apartment building

At various points, the singer phones the woman’s husband in an attempt to make him hand over a ransom — but sadly he seems more interested in taking advantage of the poor woman’s absence to live it up with a couple of call girls.

Increasingly frustrated at his unwillingness to pay up, Rihanna and her stooges progress to a motel, where a Sapphic sex party ensues, in which their victim is spread-eagled naked on a bed, plied with drugs, and the various participants take turns to wave their bodies in her face.

Eventually she wakes up, and tries to ask a passing policeman for help, only to be hit over the head with a glass, and then drowned in a swimming pool.

Road trip: The women pose casually as they hit the road, seemingly ignoring the naked, bound hostage in the back seat

She's in charge: However, she then enjoys a cigarette break as her henchmen load the trunk - and body - into the back of her car 

Having thus dispensed with her meal ticket, Rihanna returns to the scene of the kidnap armed with a chainsaw and various hunting knives and sets about torturing and dismembering the hapless accountant.

The closing scenes see our heroine lying naked in her trunk, blood-spattered and cushioned by piles of cash.

A few housekeeping notes: this video has no age rating, is free to view and is unaffected by parental controls, whether activated at source by your broadband provider or on your computer.

It can be viewed on any mobile device over a phone network.

Not playing around: The victim is strung up and left swinging back in forth in the barn, as Rihanna seems to grow angrier, with her phone call likely not going as planned 

Let it burn: RiRi walked away after torching a vehicle, in the video that glorifies violence and murder

Typically, Rihanna’s fan base consists of young teenage girls, mostly of secondary school age (that is to say 11 and upwards), but she also — as anyone who has ever eavesdropped on a playground will know — appeals to primary school children, especially those with older siblings.

And yet this video contains, in no particular order, extreme violence, torture, drug-taking, guns, negative racial stereotyping (towards both black and white), sexual exploitation and murder.

Actually, sorry: not just contains, but also glorifies and justifies. After all, the man stole her money. What else is a poor girl to do?

 Rihanna doesn’t have children. But I really hope that one day she does. Because perhaps then she will understand what it feels like, as a mother, to live in fear and helplessness.

Now I wonder, are you familiar with Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, the 1971 film based on Anthony Burgess’s 1962 dystopian novella?

For its time, it was a hugely culturally significant piece of cinema. It seemed to encapsulate what many thought was the breakdown of civilised society taking place within the wider world. It contained an unprecedented level of violence, which was linked to a number of so-called copycat cases. Eventually, Kubrick himself withdrew the film.

The sadistic brutality of Malcolm McDowell, darkly psychotic in the lead role of Alex, is at the heart of what makes the film so viscerally shocking. The sheer nastiness of it is almost unbearable, from coffee tables shaped as naked women on all-fours, to the twisted clownishness of the infamous rape scene.

What’s so frightening about it is the fact that Alex and his henchmen, his ‘Droogs’, are not so much immoral as amoral, wholly lacking in any kind of empathy or humanity — and as such no longer really human at all.

A Clockwork Orange was one of the first things that came to mind when I saw the video for B***h Better Have My Money. All the elements — amorality, inhumanity, violence and depravity as a hobby — are there, only with nudity and more designer clothes.

Sweet smile: Rihanna smiled innocently at a police officer who comes over to check what the women are upto

At least, though, Kubrick agonised over his creation. He understood the implications of the world he had represented so effectively in art.

He felt some sort of responsibility for the film, and for subsequent criminal actions that apparently arose from it. Rihanna, quite clearly, thinks it’s all some huge joke. What’s more, the Alex character is ultimately punished for his crimes.

Choice of weapons: When kidnap and torture doesn't get Rihanna what she wants, she heads back to the luxury apartment with an array of deadly weapons

Half a century on, and Rihanna, by contrast, is rewarded for hers. Not just in the video, but in real life. She is a global superstar adored by millions. So crime, according to what passes for the narrative of this video, does pay after all.

Because what other conclusion can we possibly draw? Certainly, if one happens to be an impressionable young person, who perhaps hasn’t quite understood the difference between right and wrong, the message would seem clear: if people don’t give you exactly what you want, then you’re perfectly within your rights to go on a drug-fuelled killing spree.

These are the sentiments that, in 2015, are deemed acceptable themes through which to promote a pop song to 12-year-olds.

Satisfied: Rihanna smokes a cigarette while naked and covered in blood, on a bed on the money she has justifiably earned in torturing and killing two people

Vicious circle: The seven-minute music video opens with a pair of bloody legs protruding from a wooden chest, and closes with Rihanna naked and covered in blood

Rhianna celebrates the release of her new video for BBHMM

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As I write, the video is four days old and it has received almost 20 million hits.

If that is not mainstream culture, I don’t know what is. That’s 20 million times that woman has been strung up by her heels; 20 million times she’s been drowned in a pool; 20 million times that Rihanna has cut off the husband’s hands with a chainsaw.

Rihanna doesn’t have children. But I really hope that one day she does. Because perhaps then she will understand what it feels like, as a mother, to live in fear and helplessness.

Not just of the ordinary stuff — your child being mowed down by a drunken driver, or getting in with the wrong crowd, or being bullied at school — but of seeing their childhoods truncated by the kind of careless horror the singer glamorises, their innocence contaminated by the slickly packaged sewage she peddles in pursuit of money and fame.

Meanwhile, this video must surely bring us one step closer to the conclusion we should have drawn a decade ago. That, for all the many ways in which the internet improves our lives, there are many in which it also diminishes them.

What we are seeing here is not freedom of expression; it’s de-humanising trash. Such violent fantasies may exist in the mind, but if we allow them to roam freely across our culture, they become real.

A civilised society learns to censor such things for the greater good of all who live in it.

Without such boundaries, we are little more than savages. And Rihanna reminds us just how far we have fallen.